


The Broom Shed Exchange

by JennTheMastermind



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canon Universe, F/M, Fluff, Hinny, Post-Deathly Hallows, Room of Requirement, The Marauder's Map
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-05
Updated: 2017-01-07
Packaged: 2018-09-14 23:25:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9210086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JennTheMastermind/pseuds/JennTheMastermind
Summary: The day before Ginny leaves for her seventh year at Hogwarts, Harry pulls her into the spider-filled-yet-very-private broom shed at the Burrow to give her a gift. This gift gives her a not unwanted surprise at Halloween, but does leave her wondering whether Harry's inclination toward rule breaking is romantic or thickheaded.





	1. Secret Scandal

**Author's Note:**

> I really just felt like writing for writing's sake and honestly? Hinny seemed the best way to do that. Enjoy! Let me know what you think, sunshines :)

“Ginny, could I have a word?”

Ginny looked up from where she sat on the sitting room floor with Hermione and Luna, listening to Arnold sing and watching the swift flicks of Crookshanks’s tail. As neither of the two girls seemed to hear Harry, Luna continued on with explaining to Hermione the truth about Crumple-Horned Snorkacks (to which Hermione was holding back her retorts quite well, in Ginny’s opinion; it was, however, entertaining to watch her face flush different colors of protest). Harry stood precariously on the kitchen threshold, peering around as if to see anyone else was there. Ginny stood and moved towards him with outstretched hands, fairly sure that Luna wouldn’t comment on her exit and Hermione would be too bothered to.

Harry took her hands and entwined his warm fingers with hers. Ginny followed him outside without a word, content to wait. She’d be lying if she said her stomach hadn’t upended at his request or his silence. She’d scarcely talked to him over the past few days, with her preparations for returning to Hogwarts and his for Auror training. Throw her family, her mum’s fretting, and all their visitors into the mix, Ginny realized she should be surprised she’s even seen him around the Burrow.

There wasn’t much space in the broom shed he led her into outside, but there was enough for the two of them to stand with a fair distance between them. However, having Harry this close and this alone wasn’t an opportunity Ginny wanted to miss. She reached up and wrapped her arms around his neck and repressed the contented sigh that rose up in her at the return of his embrace and the feel of his body—alive and warm—against hers. 

While Harry had been at the Burrow with her nearly all summer after the battle at Hogwarts, Ginny had missed him—she had missed them.

Trying on a smile to fight the heaviness in her chest, Ginny resorted to what a childhood of six older brothers had made her quite proficient at: teasing. “Harry Potter, the secret scandal. We don’t need to go sneaking around in broom sheds, you know.”

“Yeah, but—I know. I just…” Harry fumbled, looking at the cob-webbed ceiling for a moment. “I just can never get a moment with you alone. There’s so many people around. If it’s not your mum having Ron and me chopping turnips or feeding the chickens, then it’s Hermione trying to nag me to go back to Hogwarts, or it’s your dad wanting to talk about the Ministry or the Prophet, or—”

Ginny grabbed the front of his shirt, pulled him downward, and kissed him to shut him up. He startled, pausing before kissing her back while he figured out what had just happened. Ginny knew the reason he hesitated was the same reason he wanted to meet her in a spider-filled broom shed: he hadn’t quite adjusted to the idea of them, independent and uninterrupted. All the same, she quite liked silencing him this way, and she was fairly certain Harry didn’t quite mind it at all.

She pulled back and could see by the dusty beams of sunlight that fell through the boards of the shed door that he’d closed his eyes. Relishing in his shortened breath, Ginny said, “Well, at least we know Ron won’t come looking for us here. He hates this shed.”

“Can’t imagine why.”

Ginny grinned, and so did Harry. 

“So,” she said, “what word did you want to have that requires the privacy of a broom shed?”

“Well,” he said, trailing off as he managed to look everywhere but at Ginny.

After a moment too long of silence, Ginny quipped, “While that is just a word, I’m afraid it’s too deep a subject, Harry.”

“I’m going to miss you,” Harry said, ignoring her comment with such seriousness that she let her teasing grin fall. “I’m going to miss you like I’ve been missing you…for months. And—and I wanted to give you something. Before you left on the train tomorrow.”

Ginny dropped her arms and rested her hands on his shoulders, leaving a space for him to dig out a familiar piece of old parchment from his pocket. The hand he’d left on her back fell to her hip, and he weighed the parchment in his hand. Ginny hadn’t seen much of the Marauder’s Map before, but she’d seen enough to recognize its yellowing edges even in the dim light of the shed.

“When we were out searching for Horcruxes,” Harry said quietly, looking down at the blank bit of parchment between them, “I used to watch this map at night. I used to watch you, to see if you were safe and…and hope that you could feel how much I missed you.”

He continued looking at the parchment, but Ginny continued looking at him.

“I kept wishing we’d had more time together…Kept thinking about how much time I’d wasted beforehand with not asking you.” Harry paused and finally looked up. Though the filtered light flashed against his glasses, Ginny reveled in the brilliance of his green eyes, and how they wanted only for her. “And now I want you to hold onto it. Might make for an interesting seventh year.”

Ginny laid a hand over his, holding him holding the parchment. She couldn’t speak passed the unexpected lump in her throat. She remembered his birthday a year ago, when she’d asked for a word of his in a similar way he’d just now asked for a word of hers. She remembered how she’d given him a kiss as a present—how good that kiss had been and how it’d been enough and yet not enough at the same time—and she kissed him like she hadn’t been able to since the aftermath of the war at Hogwarts. Harry kissed her, too, with a soft passion that made Ginny simultaneously want to collapse from weak knees onto the dirty broom shed floor and fly over the highest trees at the fastest speeds with any of the old brooms at her back.

“I wish you were coming back this year,” Ginny managed, her free hand absently threaded through the ends of his hair on the back of his neck. “It wasn’t the same without you last year. Won’t be the same now, either.”

“I wish I was, too, Gin, but I can’t. I just—”

“I know why, Harry. I do. Haven’t I always known?”

Ginny squeezed his hand and Harry nodded. They hadn’t talked about his decision to not return to Hogwarts for his seventh year alone, but she’d heard his reasons plenty as he’d given them to her parents, the ministry, and the various surviving members of the Order and the Hogwarts staff. All Harry had done—all he’d seen—had been seventh-year education enough. Besides, if Harry Potter—the Chosen One, the Boy Who Lived and defeated the Dark Lord not once but twice—were to return to what remained of a school that thrived off rumors, his seventh-year education would be hindered by unwanted, distracting whispers. Whispers louder than any he’d had to endure before. All summer, Ginny and her family had had to lead astray any journalists or nuts who’d gotten through the Burrow’s defenses in search of interrogating the famous Harry Potter about his final battle with Voldemort—about what it was like to face death. He didn’t deserve that trapped in a castle.

Ginny understood perfectly why Harry would not be returning to Hogwarts. However, that didn’t mean she couldn’t wish differently.

“Yeah,” Harry agreed softly, his breath rustling her hair that’d fallen between them. “I know. You always have.”

He glanced down at the parchment again. “You know how it works?”

“I do.”

“Brilliant.”

“Harry,” Ginny said against his lips, making him look up at her. She whispered, “Thank you.”

“Keep watch of it for me.”

Ginny nodded and kissed him again, as deeply as she could without pressing him too hard against the rickety, spidery wall of the shed.


	2. Halloween Plot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry gets a bit reminiscent over butterbeers with Hagrid and Ron, remembers a sunny day with Ginny from his sixth year, and forms a plan that's a bit romantic and definitely stupid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let the pinning and fluff continue. I live for this shit. Let me know how you like, lovelies!

Harry was so accustomed to seeing the Three Broomsticks flooded with Hogwarts students, that he was a bit unnerved to see it nearly empty when he met Hagrid and Ron on Halloween. 

“Hogsmeade visits been a bit rare this term,” Hagrid said when he noticed Harry’s eyes glancing about the pub. “Reckon after all that’s happened, parents don’ want their kids away from the castle!”

Harry didn’t blame them. The threat of Voldemort was gone, but the dregs of his following were not. Harry had caught himself on multiple occasions watching over his shoulder, taking shadowed and unseen paths to get where he needed, and rubbing his scar absently, though it hadn’t hurt in months. They were old habits—war habits—that he couldn’t shake. His nightmares didn’t help him adjust to this newfound time of relative peace, either. Harry no longer saw into Voldemort’s life, but that didn’t mean he’d stopped seeing the horrors he’d committed or Voldemort himself. 

Some nights, they had him so shaken—trapped in echoes of the past—that when he woke and prepared for his day, he’d tuck his invisibility cloak into his jacket, just like he’d done tonight. Harry patted the sides of his jacket now, checking that it and his new wand were there, though he knew very well they would be.

“How’s McGonagall doing as headmistress, Hagrid?” Ron asked over his butterbeer, and Harry turned his attention back to his old friends.

Hagrid lowered his bucket sized tankard with a fair grin. “Never better, Ron,” Hagrid said, “never better. And that goes for the school, too, that does. Not the same without Dumbledore, o’ course…but if anyone can get Hogwarts back where it needs ter be, it’s Minerva.”

“To headmistress Minerva McGonagall!” Ron toasted with a grin as Hagrid bumped his and Harry’s butterbeers a bit too enthusiastically, sloshing the table. 

Harry laughed as he drank, the butterbeer warming from his throat, to his stomach, to his core. Hagrid asked Ron about how he liked Auror training with Harry and they lapsed back into conversation. Harry listened on the fringes. He was glad to be out with them as it was certainly better than being alone in Grimmauld Place, yet he still felt alone. He felt oddly reminiscent, and he wasn’t sure what to make of it.

Harry thought about his first Halloween at Hogwarts—the first real Halloween he’d ever had—and how it’d ended with a mountain troll and two best friends. He smiled, but soon that thought was wiped away by the memory of Godric’s Hollow cemetery, and the dates on a gravestone. Eighteen years ago today, he’d lost his parents. Harry twirled his bottle of butterbeer around on the glossy, palm-worn table. He’d lost more since that night, but he gained just as much, hadn’t he? He thought of Ron and Hagrid beside him, of the Weasley’s at the burrow, of Hermione up at Hogwarts—of Ginny, happy and laughing at the Gryffindor table for the school feast. The memory of her smile in their last moment in the Burrow’s broom shed made him smile, as well.

At this, Hagrid asked, “You a’right, Harry?”

Harry glanced up from his butterbeer, the quiet sounds of the Three Broomstick’s customers coming back to him. “Yeah. Just thinking about…that mountain troll,” he said quickly, adding, “the one from first year. Remember?”

“Oh, yeah!” Ron said, grinning again with a laugh over the top of his butterbeer. “First time I ever levitated something and your wand got covered in troll bogeys. If only Hermione were here, then we could have a proper Halloween celebration.”

“And Ginny,” Harry added without thinking. 

“Yeah. And Ginny. Too bad today wasn’t a Hogsmeade day for them. They could’ve met us here.”

Hagrid eyed them, hiding his growing smile behind his beard. “You boys wouldn’t be missin’ them now, would ye?”

“Absolutely not,” Ron said incredulously, though the blush across his face said otherwise. Harry laughed with Hagrid. “Still, if only the passageways into the castle were still open. Then we could sneak under the invisibility cloak and go see them. Right, Harry?”

Harry nodded at the nudge of his elbow but didn’t say anything. He’d been thinking about sneaking into the castle for weeks, but didn’t know how.

Hagrid lowered his tankard. “Even if the others hadn’t been closed durin’ the time Snape was headmaster, o’ course McGonogall would’ve closed them. Now, the only passages in and ou’ the castle now are the front gates and good old Aberforth’s tunnel paintin’—”

“It’s still open?” Harry asked.

Hagrid blanked at him, his beady eyes going round, then shook his head and beard frivolously. “Nope, no. O’ course not. I shouldn’ ‘ave told you that.”

Ron shot a sideways grin at Harry, who tucked Hagrid’s accidental slip of knowledge into his mind for later use. 

“So, Ron!” Hagrid said, clearly changing the conversation in hope they’d forget. “Any news from Charlie on Norberta?”

Ron played along and Harry gladly slipped into thought again. The idea of stepping into an alley, pulling on his invisibility cloak, and sneaking through the Hog’s Head into Hogwarts to see Ginny was too tempting to move away from. He enjoyed spending time with Ron and he’d missed Hagrid lately, but thought he’d much rather spend his evening with her. At least then he’d be too preoccupied—too happy—to dwell on sad thoughts about his parents. Harry felt this daydream of sneaking into to see Ginny turn into a hollow ache of want. He sipped his butterbeer, missing her more at the prospect of being so close yet so far from her.

It was a familiar feeling and, like always, made him remember their sun-filled days during his sixth year—those blissful hours where he wasn’t Harry Potter: the Chosen One, but just Harry. At the mention in Hagrid and Ron’s conversation about the new beasts Hagrid was teaching in his Care of Magical Creatures class, a particular sunlit hour when the weather was warm made Harry smile…

 

_“How do you think it even got there?” Ginny asked._

_She and Harry sat by the black lake, his back against a tree trunk and her back against his chest, in an area secluded comfortably from the rest of the school. Out in the middle of the lake, the giant squid waved a monstrous tentacle and a group of first years screamed. They ran up the bank from the water’s edge where they’d been wading up to their knees._

_“No idea,” Harry laughed. “Bet you Hermione knows, though.”_

_“’There’s a whole chapter about it in Hogwarts: A History,’” Ginny huffed in an excellent Hermione impression. “’Honestly, don’t you read?’”_

_Harry laughed into Ginny’s hair, breathing in the flowery scent that always seemed to surround her. She laughed, too, and it was hard for Harry to ignore the pleasant rumbling he felt from her back. Unable to resist, Harry grabbed her hand and entwined their fingers. He held them up by Ginny’s shoulder as their laughs subsided to a quiet picked up by a rustling breeze._

_With her unoccupied hand, Ginny set aside their books they’d been attempting to read in preparation for exams. She turned sideways in Harry’s lap, leaning against one raised knee, and letting her legs over his extended leg. Her shoulder as comfortable as bone could be against his chest, he softly ran his fingers along the exposed skin of her inner arm, where she’d rolled up the sleeves of her uniform. Ginny rested her head on his shoulder, her nose against his neck, and they lapsed into idle, lighthearted conversation that had nothing to do with giant squids or exams._

_Eventually, when the sun had begun to move further down the sky, Ginny reached into her school bag and pulled out a few chocolate frogs for them to share. Biting off a leg, she said, “Wish we didn’t always have to stay outside all day not to be bothered by anyone,”_

_“It’s been a nice day.”_

_“I know, but the sunlight makes me too tired to read for my O.W.L.s. And you make it harder to concentrate on reading for my O.W.L.s.”_

_“My apologies,” Harry quipped, fighting a smile. “Next time you want to steal away outside, I’ll turn you around and send you to the library.”_

_“Oh, shut it. Library’s only so good for studying anyway.”_

_“Common room?”_

_“Too loud and crowded. And Ron’s there. He’s gotten better, but I still see him staring at us on occasion like you’re not his best friend but some other bloke he needs to protect  
me from. Pathetic, really. When do you reckon he’ll ask Hermione out?”_

_Harry gave a short laugh, not really wanting to imagine his two best friends together. He wanted them happy, but he’d been cast between them in too many fights to be completely comfortable with the idea of them together. Turning his thoughts elsewhere, Harry suggested, “Room of Requirement?”_

_Ginny lifted her head suddenly and frowned at him. His stomach flipped, but settled once she said, “Why’ve we never thought of studying in there before?”_

_“This isn’t exactly studying, Gin—”_

_“Oh, shut it. I’m serious, Harry. Think about it. We could ask the Room for anything—a room better than the Library but more quiet and private than the common room. It could be our space inside. And better than any empty classroom could be. No one would be able to find us. Not even on that silly map of yours.”_

_Harry blinked at her. “Brilliant.”_

_“I know it is,” she said, resting a hand on his jaw and sinking into a kiss._

_Harry thought her lips tasted like chocolate and he welcomed her with closed eyes, thinking about how nice the Room of Requirement might be as a private study room. He and Ginny wouldn’t be subject to Madam Pince’s glares in the Library, Ron’s stares or Hermione’s lectures about studying more in the common room, or even the occasional, distracting shouts from other students around the lake._

_“Harry?” Ginny asked against his lips between kisses._

_They could ask the Room for comfortable chairs, like their favorites by the Gryffindor common room fire, and expansive desks, like the ones they spread out on in the Library. Harry didn’t think they could ask the room for food, but that was one quick trip down to the kitchens for the benefit of hours of uninterrupted time._

_“Harry?”_

_It truly could be a room of their own, with almost anything they could think of…_

_“Harry James Potter,” Ginny said, louder this time as she pulled back an inch. Harry almost followed her, drinking in her kisses as his thoughts swam. He blinked and she asked,_

_“Where are you right now?”_

_“’m right here.”_

_“No, you’re not. You’re in here,” she tapped on his forehead. “What are you thinking of?”_

_Harry smiled as he kissed her again. “The Room of Requirement—our room. Whatever we can make of it.”_

_“An intriguing idea, isn’t it?”_

_Harry hummed in agreement, kissing the tip of her freckled nose. “Let’s try it. Tomorrow.”_

_“It’s a date, Mr. Potter,” Ginny said, pulling herself up with feigned air of professionalism._

_“That it is, Miss Weasley.”_

_Harry pulled her back to him into another kiss as she adjusted herself to straddle his lap. They sat together so long, engrossed in nothing besides each other, that their books and bags lay forgotten and their dinner almost passed completely forgotten. Eventually, with hearts racing and lips full, they raced up to the Great Hall in time to catch some of the last bits of food left on the Gryffindor table, their beautiful and unproductive sunny afternoon anything but a waste of time._

 

They never were able to test their room, however, Harry reflected. That next day he’d gone out on a Horcrux Hunt with Dumbledore and things were never that peaceful at Hogwarts again for the two of them. 

Still, as Harry sipped once more from his now cold butterbeer he thought maybe their idea about the Room of Requirement wasn’t a total loss. Harry padded the sides of his  
jacket once more to feel the comforting lump of his invisibility cloak.


	3. Required Visit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Harry is just dumb and heart-sick enough to break into Hogwarts and see Ginny. Basically, it's pure fluff.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here's the end of it! It's been fun. Enjoy!

Ginny slunk down on her bed, her bed curtains closed tight, biting a leg off a chocolate frog and tilting her head to better watch the Marauder’s Map under the light of her wand. Most people were in the Great Hall, enjoying the rest of the Halloween Feast, but Ginny couldn’t be bothered to join them. She’d made an appearance and ate a decent share against both her sudden introversion and lack of appetite. Both were unusual for her, but on occasional nights like tonight she preferred solitude and silence. 

She gave a sigh and let the map fall flat on her stomach, noxing her wand. Ginny had taken to watching the map frequently, like a muggle would a television. She wasn’t sure what she was expecting to find; it’s not like there were any more Death Eaters roaming the castle anymore. As her heart pulled towards a hollow ache deep inside her, Ginny confessed to herself that she really wasn’t watching the map to scout trouble. 

She was watching the map to scout Harry.

When he’d given her the map back at the Burrow, Ginny thought it was his silent way of promising to come see her. Why else would he tell her to keep watch of it for him? There were dozens of safer places to keep the Marauder’s Map in Grimmauld Place, so he clearly hadn’t given it to her strictly for safekeeping. 

If Ginny knew Harry, and she had her suspicions he did, then he’d lent it to her so she could find him—so she could see him. It’s how he’d used it on his Horcrux Hunt, hadn’t it? To give himself hope while he was away?

Ginny wondered if seeing her name on the map had hurt him as much as not seeing his name hurt her.

She pulled up the map and lit her wand once more to see Hermione heading out of the Great Hall. Ginny hoped she’d stay out of the dormitories for a few hours—perhaps study in the common room like she usually did. As great as Hermione’s company had been, Ginny still didn’t feel like people. The one person she wanted to see she could only get as close to as his few letters allowed.

At the thought, Ginny pulled out a half dozen envelopes from under her pillow. Arnold snuggled into her shoulder with a slight shiver and she reached up to pet him gently. With his soft humming as her soundtrack, Ginny reread Harry’s letters for the hundredth time.

There was only so much that could be included in writing, Ginny knew, but she still wished he’d tell her more. His Auror training was going smoothly, he’d said, but he’d also made clear how he wished the other trainees would stop asking him to join their practice sessions on the weekends. From what Ginny gathered, Harry liked the Aurors, but he didn’t fancy them as much as he had Dumbledore’s Army while they were in school. Ginny had mused in her letter back to him that he was only pissy because he had to take orders instead of giving them for once and, this time, he couldn’t go breaking the rules.

When her eyes started to get heavy and her mind began to slow with an unsated need to have Harry there—with her, in bed where she could lean into his arms and sleep without a single wish for anything more—Ginny turned to studying his handwriting and signature. She liked to tease him about his chicken scratch, but she wouldn’t have wanted him to write any differently.

There was a lot that couldn’t be captured by letters, and Ginny felt with a sinking heart that she hated resorting to studying the style of his hand and watching a map for a name that would never appear. 

The holidays when she could see him had never seemed farther away.

“Ginny?” Hermione whispered as their dormitory door creaked open. Ginny went still behind her bed curtains. “Ginny, are you awake?”

_No_ , Ginny thought.

She heard Hermione give a slight sigh that was no less concerned than it was exhausted. Guilt upended Ginny’s stomach for a moment. Hermione, she realized, was probably the one person who knew best how much she longed to see Harry. They were best friends, after all, and Hermione was no doubt missing Ron just as much if not more.

Still, Ginny’s tongue was cemented to the roof of her mouth; she had the urge to double check the candy she’d been eating wasn’t one of her brothers’ Skiving Snackboxes. She should talk to Hermione, but tonight wasn’t the night. Soon enough, as the minutes gave way to hours and the rest of the girls in their dorm returned from the feast, Ginny could hear the snores and steady breathing of sleep. Ginny, however, couldn’t rest and resorted to looking at the Marauder’s Map again.

She perused its dry pages, eating another chocolate frog. She was unsurprised to see most of the students in their respective common rooms or dormitories. Harry said the map might make for an interesting year, but nothing of the sort—

Ginny almost choked on the chocolate. There, pacing along the seventh floor corridor, was a name that made Ginny’s heart pound so loudly she was certain it would wake her dorm mates. There, pacing the entrance to the Room of Requirement at what had to at least be midnight, was Harry Potter.

“You git,” Ginny whispered to herself. She was already toeing into her slippers and sliding a Quidditch hoodie on over her night clothes. 

She may not have an invisibility cloak, but she had a map and she had a desire to both hit and kiss this stupid man of hers.

 

Harry paced a few more times in front of the Room of Requirement. Giving Ron and Hagrid the slip at the Three Broomsticks had been as easy as saying he was tired from training all week and wanted to rest at home. He’d snuck into a dark alley, slipped on the invisibility cloak, and made his way through the painting in the Hog’s Head just like he’d imagined. There was hardly a bump along the way until he realized he’d actually need to leave the Room of Requirement for Ginny to see him. He hoped—wished—that she was watching the map. 

Harry paused, staring at the blank expanse of wall. What did he want the Room to be? He supposed he’d let Ginny decide—if she found him.

Panic plunged into his chest. She would find him, wouldn’t she? He’d asked her to keep watch. Harry knew it was ridiculous to expect her to watch it all the time, but if ever she were to do so, he wanted it to be tonight.

Harry heard some banging down a nearby corridor—something akin to a dungbomb going off in a suit of armor—and the familiar peels of Peeve’s laughter. Now, a different type of panic took hold of him. He’d taken care to avoid detection as he risked sneaking into the castle, but no one knew as well as he did how often students—and ghosts—roamed the nightly corridors. He was invisible, of course, but Ginny wasn’t. If she had been watching, she might get caught on her way up—

“You’re a real thickhead, you know that?” Ginny whispered behind him. 

Harry spun to see her, dressed in her night clothes with a Gryffindor Quidditch hoodie, holding the map and her lit wand. She was staring about a meter to the left of where he was standing. Hearing Peeves dungbomb his way closer towards them, Harry sprang to fold the cloak over Ginny. He grabbed her waist and pulled her up against the wall with him, noting with a grin that she had a small bit of chocolate on the corner of her mouth.

Ginny startled at him, noxing her wand quickly as she shoved him in the shoulder. “You—git,” she punctuated with another shove. “How stupid can you get?”

“I could ask the same of you,” Harry said. “At least I’ve got an invisibility cloak.”

“Oh, shove it, Potter. Why’d you give me the map to watch and sneak into the castle if you didn’t want me out of bed after curfew?”

“When I gave you the map,” Harry confessed, “I’ll admit I hadn’t quite thought it through properly.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yes. But we’re here now, so let’s leave it, shall we?”

Harry smiled at the scowl on her face. He grinned as she struggled to keep it. He kissed the corner of her mouth as she lost it, subsiding into quiet laughter with him—kissing away the chocolate on her lips.

“Where are we going to go, then, Harry? Since you’re here with such a wonderfully thought-out plan—”

Harry pulled her ever-closer as the translucent form of Peeves soared passed, dropping a dungbomb not far from them. He and Ginny covered their noses as Harry nodded toward the wall behind them. “Room of Requirement,” he managed. “Quick.”

As though it knew their peril at the hands of Peeves, the Room conjured its door right at Harry’s back. Ginny, her hands around Harry’s waist, opened it as he half-fell and half-pulled them inside.

When he pulled off the invisibility cloak, it was to face a room he reckoned looked quite a bit like the Gryffindor girls’ dormitory. It wasn’t much different from how he remembered his while he attended Hogwarts, but he knew he hadn’t been the one thinking of it. Harry turned towards Ginny, folding up his cloak. She was gaping at the room.

“I was thinking about you earlier while I was in bed,” she stumbled quietly, moving around the Room with amazement as though this was the first time she’d seen its magic. “I thought it’d be a nice way to sleep—to have you there with me. But I didn’t think I’d thought of it just now…I guess I did.”

“Ginny Weasley, tell me: what else do you think about me while in bed?”

“Shut it, Potter,” she said, shoving him lightly again. “Or I’ll push you straight back to the Hog’s Head.”

Harry grinned, glancing over his shoulder at the ever-present painting of Ariana Dumbledore through which he’d gained access into Hogwarts. “No, you wouldn’t.”

He felt, fully and completely, his spirits had lifted once he saw Ginny. Any sad reminiscing was pushed from his mind as she held out her hand for his.

“You’re right. I wouldn’t. Not now, anyway, you thickhead.”

They were the only living souls in the Room, as Harry didn’t quite count the painting of Ariana much of an issue. Nevertheless, as Ginny followed his eyes to the picture, he grabbed her hand and let her lead him to a bunk he felt certain mirrored her own. They pulled the bed curtains closed, making their small world even smaller—thought it felt all the better for it with just the two of them.

They were on their sides facing each other, Harry propped on his elbow and Ginny’s head on a pillow, with the invisibility cloak, Marauder’s Map, and their wands set aside by their feet. All either of them seemed to be interested in just then (beside the occasional snogging) was talking. Harry listened to her tell him all the things about her seventh year that she hadn’t been able to include in her few letters. Studying for the N.E.W.T.’s was more rigorous than studying for her O.W.L.’s had been, but Ginny maintained that it was much easier without him around to distract her.

“Not my fault you’re easily distracted,” he said. “Consider it revenge, for all those times at Quidditch practice when I was watching you instead of the game. Or in the common room, when you’d sit with us and I’d forget how to read—”

“That’s not my fault, either!”

“It is entirely—”

Ginny gave him a lighthearted shove in the shoulder—enough for him to lose his balance and fall onto his back. Harry hardly had time to laugh before Ginny hooked a leg around his and slid half on top of him, pinning him down. Her hands in his hair, Harry didn’t mind at all sinking into the deep kiss she gave him. Gladly, he wrapped both his arms around her, holding her close as her fiery hair fell to either side of them.

Only when he could feel the fierce beating of her heart against his own and his breathing was ragged from her kisses and her weight did Ginny slide off him to rest her head on his chest. Harry missed her warmth immediately, but he settled for entwining their fingers on one hand and running his other through the spread of her red hair. Her face flushed, she settled with a sigh and watched him with those brown eyes that so often favored his daydreams.

“Tell me more about Auror training,” she said when her breath returned. “Bet Ron’s a disaster, isn’t he?”

“He’s bloody brilliant,” Harry defended quickly. At Ginny’s skeptically raised eyebrow, he shrugged as best one could lying down and added, “On most occasions. Still can’t figure out how not to get trapped by a veela, but don’t tell Hermione that.”

“Oh, not a word,” Ginny grinned. “No one can know about this anyway, Harry. McGonagall loves you, but that’s never stopped her from punishing anyone. I don’t quite know what would happen if you got caught in Hogwarts.”

Harry gently brushed a thumb over her wrinkled forehead, tucking a stray hair behind her ear. “I won’t get caught. I’ve been in more dangerous places than Hogwarts.”

At this, Ginny really frowned and sat up. Harry followed her.

“I mean it, Harry. This probably shouldn’t happen again.”

Harry’s stomach lurched and his heart skipped a beat. He’d been looking forward to the next time, if he was being honest. He didn’t care much about breaking the Hogwarts’ rules, since he was breaking them for such a good reason.

“Probably shouldn’t,” Harry agreed anyway, adding passed the lump in his throat, “but that doesn’t mean it won’t. I meant what I said at the Burrow. I miss you, and I don’t think I could ever stop—not even if you’re there with me always.”

Ginny grabbed the hand he’d been absently rubbing up and down her arm and held it to her lips. It was a small touch, but Harry knew he’d take it with him when he left.

“I miss you, too,” she began against her own feelings, he knew, “but we’ll see each other at Christmas. We can wait until then, can’t we?”

Harry’s answer was no, but he didn’t want a disagreement with her—not tonight when they’d both been feeling so contented and happy.

“Let’s just enjoy the rest of our night—”

“Morning.”

“Our morning. One more hour, Gin. And then we can talk later, okay? Through owls.”

Ginny studied him, her brow furrowed in worry. Then, she said, “I think you quite enjoy sneaking around to places with me when we don’t really need to sneak, you know that?”

Harry grinned. “It’s the only way I can get you alone.”

Ginny hummed in disagreement as she dragged him down with her to the pillows. This time, she pulled him on top of her. “No, I don’t think that’s it. You, Mr. Potter, are in love with breaking the rules. It’s why you’re frustrated with training most days. It’s why you’re here now.”

“No.” Harry shook his head. “All of that is because I’m in love with _you_.”

Ginny’s hands stilled in his messy hair before Harry realized what he’d just said. He held his breath, not having meant to tell her that. He wondered absently if the dread he felt in his gut was how Hagrid felt when he let something slip he hadn’t meant to.

“What did you just say?” Ginny asked quietly.

Harry swallowed hard, but forced himself to keep looking at her. “I said that…that I’m in love with you, Ginny. I love you.”

“Harry James Potter,” she said, a breathless smile taking over her face as she cupped his jaw, “you smooth-talking git.”

She lunged up to kiss him, surprising the fear out of his body as he let her drag him back down. With the way her tongue sought out his and her hand grabbed his hair, he was fairly sure he’d been forgiven for breaking into the castle tonight. With the way she whispered her love back against his lips, Harry was fairly certain he would not be able to wait until Christmas to see Ginny again.


End file.
